Hesione

Another guest arrives after many years away in the far reaches of the empire: Hesione’s sister, Lady Ariadne Utterword, played by Ms. Fraser with magnificently decadent ennui in an exquisitely calibrated comic turn — by far the sharpest on display.

Last year, the Musée d’Orsay purchased “Hercules Delivering Hesione,” by the German master Hans Thoma.

After all, no actress plays Shakespeare's Beatrice, Shaw's Hesione or Rattigan's Hester the same way.

Anyone who thinks Shaw a dry old stick should look at Hesione Hushabye's astonishing speech on the transfiguring power of love, which here passes almost unnoticed.

Still advised by Venus, Paris soon expressed a desire to sail for Greece, under the pretext of rescuing Hesione, his father’s sister, whom Hercules had carried off, after besieging Troy.